Gave this a bit more thought, and even R'dTFM. It is a bit of an Achilles' Heel after all. I no longer believe there's "a workaround for whatever I need here", unfortunately. And I suspect it needn't be this way.
The fundamental problem is that there are only 2 differentiated Input blocks and 2 differentiated Output blocks, even though the USB I/O comprises more. What Fractal does is essentially overload these I/O blocks, by globally changing or mirroring their functionality. For instance, if I want to send audio to USB, it has to be USB3/4, and it can only be a dry input signal, or whatever's routed to the Output 2 block. The latter sounds reasonably flexible, until you consider that we've just used the Output 2 block. So effectively, I no longer have a physical FX loop, or an extra output to use for a guitar cab tap, or whatever. There are similar issues if I want to monitor audio from USB: the only way to get audio back onto the Grid for further processing (with these amazing Fractal effects
) is to steal the Input 1 block. It would be
so much more powerful if there were just generic Input and Output blocks that allowed you to select whatever I/O was actually available, i.e. from the physical inputs and outputs and the USB channels.
The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that this is all dictated by global settings. I can't pick my battles in one preset that's going to run a synth via USB and then choose another preset that needs the FX loop. It's all or nothing. The USB routing was clearly designed as an afterthought to facilitate DAW integration and reamping. There's a lot of room for improvement here.
I took a look at the FM9 manual, and things are
somewhat improved on account of an extra input and SPDIF, but it's mostly the same deal.
